Search results

1 – 10 of 383
Article
Publication date: 15 September 2022

Sharmin Khodaiji

By the mid-19th century the British colonial state introduced liberal education to India. Amongst various disciplines, political economy illustrates the concerns of the colonial…

Abstract

Purpose

By the mid-19th century the British colonial state introduced liberal education to India. Amongst various disciplines, political economy illustrates the concerns of the colonial state with the education of Indians, and its anxiety with quelling political discontentment. The emerging Indian nationalist intelligentsia also utilized ideas from classical political economy, first taught in educational institutions, to critique colonial policy and proposed the development of “Indian Economics”, suited to national economic interests. This paper explores the development of political economy as a specific knowledge form in Calcutta University and Bombay University, and its connection with colonial educational policy.

Design/methodology/approach

This study relies primarily on university records and the proceedings of the Education Department to bring out the politically sensitive nature of the teaching of economics in colonial India.

Findings

The study finds that political economy grew from being a minor part of the overall university syllabi to becoming part of the first university departments created in early-20th-century India. The government and nationalist forces both found the discipline to be relevant to their respective agendas. The circulation of knowledge theoretical framework is found to be relevant here.

Originality/value

The history of political economy in Indian universities, especially during the 19th century, has not been dealt with in any detail. This study tries to fill this gap. The close connection between politics and the teaching of economics has also not been studied closely, which this paper does.

Book part
Publication date: 7 May 2019

Tim Barker

This chapter is a contribution to the intellectual history of the anxiety that full employment in the modern United States depended somehow on military spending. This discourse…

Abstract

This chapter is a contribution to the intellectual history of the anxiety that full employment in the modern United States depended somehow on military spending. This discourse (conveniently abbreviated as “military Keynesianism”) is vaguely familiar, but its contours and transit still await a full study. The chapter shows the origins of the idea in the left-Keynesian milieu centered around Harvard’s Alvin Hansen in the late 1930s, with a particular focus on the diverse group that cowrote the 1938 stagnationist manifesto An Economic Program for American Democracy. After a discussion of how these young economists participated in the World War II mobilization, the chapter considers how questions of stagnation and military stimulus were marginalized during the years of the high Cold War, only to be revived by younger radicals. At the same time, it demonstrates the existence of a community of discourse that directly links the Old Left of the 1930s and 1940s with the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s, and cuts across the division between left-wing social critique and liberal statecraft.

Details

Including A Symposium on 50 Years of the Union for Radical Political Economics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-849-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 September 2015

Jens Maesse

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a discourse analytical understanding of the political economy. The term “crisis” is an important label in recent discussion in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a discourse analytical understanding of the political economy. The term “crisis” is an important label in recent discussion in political economy. Yet the genuine discursive dimension of “the crisis” and the multiple linguistic layers of the crisis discourse remains an open issue.

Design/methodology/approach

Realist perspectives usually believe in an external reality of crises independent of the language construction; in contrast, constructivist perspectives argue that a crisis is always the result of a socio-linguistic construction process. This contribution follows a critical-constructivist perspective, thereby taking into account powerful discursive actors which are able to “declare” a state in the world as a “crisis”.

Findings

From a discourse analytical point of view, this paper examines the rules and logics of crisis management policy, arguing that a new politico-academic elite has appeared which is beyond the classical distinction between “Keynesians” and “neo-liberals”. By taking a position in the discourse of the recent debate on financial regulation, these new elite might be able to manage the crisis for a particular time, as they are constructed as “moderating actors” through academic and political discourses.

Research limitations/implications

From a practical point of view, this analysis cannot offer economic solutions; from an analytical viewpoint, it will not give insights into discursive contexts.

Practical implications

This analysis helps to understand current debates on economic policy and to improve the communicative efficiency of the participants.

Originality/value

This paper combines a discourse analysis with a governmentality perspective and applies this analytical tool onto a political and economic topic currently prevailing in the global political economy.

Article
Publication date: 1 October 1986

Jon D. Wisman

In recent years, in the partial vacuum left by the apparent inadequacy of Keynesian economics, there has been a renaissance of natural law cosmology. Accordingly, the social world…

Abstract

In recent years, in the partial vacuum left by the apparent inadequacy of Keynesian economics, there has been a renaissance of natural law cosmology. Accordingly, the social world is again viewed through pre‐Keynesian spectacles as ideally self‐adjusting through the action of the free market. Although the re‐emergence of this outmoded ideology is reactionary, it has been salutary in checking the hubris of the positivistic and technocratic Keynesian fine tuners. The purpose of this article is to trace this revival of natural law cosmology and assess the challenge this ideological reversal poses to the prospects for the evolution of a “social economics”.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 13 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Abstract

Details

Documents on Government and the Economy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-827-4

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2004

John Smithin

This paper is a review essay of Leeson, R. (Ed.), Keynes, Chicago and Friedman (2 volumes), Pickering and Chatto, London, 2003. These volumes contain a comprehensive collection of…

1744

Abstract

This paper is a review essay of Leeson, R. (Ed.), Keynes, Chicago and Friedman (2 volumes), Pickering and Chatto, London, 2003. These volumes contain a comprehensive collection of previously published papers, and also some interesting new materials, relating to the controversy about the accuracy of Milton Friedman's depiction of the “oral tradition” in monetary economics at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. As such, the work is a notable addition to the scholarly literature. The broader issue raised by this collection is the precise relationship between Friedman's “monetarism” and the so‐called “Keynesian economics” of the neoclassical synthesis, and specifically, whether there was any real difference between them.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 31 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1996

Bill Gerrard

Using recent literature, examines developments in seven macroeconomic schools of thought: orthodox Keynesian, monetarist, new classical, real business cycle theory, new Keynesian…

4188

Abstract

Using recent literature, examines developments in seven macroeconomic schools of thought: orthodox Keynesian, monetarist, new classical, real business cycle theory, new Keynesian, Austrian and post‐Keynesian. Describes all of these and classifies them as orthodox, new or radical. After setting out the differences, discusses the degree of agreement between the schools of thought. Concludes that macroeconomics is constantly evolving, resulting in new disagreements requiring a new consensus.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 23 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 1991

Masudul Alam Choudhury

The article makes a comprehensive study of the development ofsocial economic thought in the history of economic doctrines. Traces ofsocial economic development are dated back to…

Abstract

The article makes a comprehensive study of the development of social economic thought in the history of economic doctrines. Traces of social economic development are dated back to the Physiocrats and moral philosophers and reference is made to the early Arab works in the developments of these social economic doctrines. The social economic thought in the classical school of economic theory is critically studied. It is shown that with the advancement of economic theory in the hands of the neoclassical school and its latter‐day developments social economic doctrines receded from mainstream economics. The contemporary social economists in North America have fallen into the trap of these neoclassical approaches applied to the study of social economic phenomena. The article also shows that similar neoclassical and ethically neutral traces continue in the works of the mixed economy theorists, institutionalists, macroeconomists, monetarists, rational expectations hypothesists, public and social choice theorists of all types. Thus, the whole gamut of mainstream economics is shown to be trapped in an epistemological and methodological quandary as to how ethical phenomena are to be treated rationally in the framework of economic theory.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 18 no. 11/12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2000

Geoffrey Wood and Mark Harcourt

Seeks to highlight the range of potential benefits flowing from neo‐corporatism. Profiles some of the principle critiques of the neo‐liberal orthodoxy followed by a more detailed…

Abstract

Seeks to highlight the range of potential benefits flowing from neo‐corporatism. Profiles some of the principle critiques of the neo‐liberal orthodoxy followed by a more detailed review of the benefits in terms of limiting inflation, generating employment, promoting greater social equity, reducing the incidence of industrial conflict and providing the basis for a more stable growth trajectory. Considers the area where evidence is lacking and uses previous research for its evidence.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 20 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 December 2021

Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak and Thiago Oliveira

Our chapter discusses the myriad ways in which Frank H. Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (RUP) has been incorporated by different streams of scholarship dedicated to…

Abstract

Our chapter discusses the myriad ways in which Frank H. Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (RUP) has been incorporated by different streams of scholarship dedicated to institutional analysis since 1990, when bibliometric evidence indicates a revival of interest in his classic work. Using citation analysis, the authors identify clusters of scholarship that build on Knight’s contributions, assessing which of his insights were absorbed by different subfields and how these have been connected to recent topics and concerns. The authors then qualitatively explore these results to throw new light on the recent history of institutional economics, using Knight’s RUP as a window into the evolution of (and inter-relations between) different research traditions that currently populate the field, including new economic sociology, comparative politics, evolutionary economics, entrepreneurial studies, environmental social sciences, international political economy, and the anthropology of finance. The authors conclude that Knight’s legacy remains unsettled, with different groups selectively absorbing a subset of his ideas and developing them in relative isolation from research conducted elsewhere. Nevertheless, boundary work connecting these separate areas reveals possible spaces for collaboration among scholars who study institutions building explicitly on Knightian insights.

Details

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Frank Knight's Risk, Uncertainty and Profit at 100
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-149-5

Keywords

1 – 10 of 383